1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus, and more particularly, to a method of informing a user of an imaging apparatus of an event via a print fade.
2. Description of the Related Art
An imaging apparatus utilizes a print engine to form an image on a print media, such as a sheet of paper or transparency. Such print engines come in two general forms: electrophotographic and ink jet. For example, an ink jet printer has associated therewith a consumable, such as for example, an ink supply tank or an ink jet cartridge, that contains a supply of ink that is consumed during an imaging process. During the imaging process, ink is selectively ejected from a plurality of nozzles in a printhead to form a printed image. Various events can occur during printing of which the user may be informed in some manner. For example, a notice may be provided to the user of the upcoming exhaustion of the ink supply.
One such method of providing such a notice to the user is to notify the user of the reduced ink that remains in the consumable, such as, for example, by reducing the density of a printed image. In one known implementation of this method, the duration of a preheat pulse applied to a heater in the printhead is changed so as to affect the amount of ink expelled from the associated nozzle. By shortening the preheat pulse, the size of the expelled ink drop is reduced, thereby decreasing the density of the printed image. Another approach is to change to a draft mode from another printing mode when a certain ink level is reached to thereby reduce the recording pixel numbers. Such approaches, however, may be misinterpreted as, for example, a printhead failure, or that the wrong print mode was inadvertently selected.
What is needed in the art is a method of informing a user of an imaging apparatus of an event by fading print in a manner that is readily discernable by a user as an indicator of the event.